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Remembering Shanghai: A Memoir of Socialites, Scholars and Scoundrels
Remembering Shanghai A Memoir of Socialites Scholars and Scoundrels Author:Claire Chao, Isabel Sun Chao 2018 Independent Author Network OUTSTANDING MEMOIR, BOOK OF THE YEAR 2nd place — 2019 Reader Views Literary Awards MEMOIR, GLOBAL AWARD — 2019 IPPY Independent Publisher Book Awards BEST FIRST BOOK, BEST E-BOOK DESIGN, COVER DESIGN 2nd place — 2019 Eric Hoffer GRAND PRIZE Finalist, FIRST HORIZON AWARD Finalist, CULTURE 2nd place — 2019 Next Generati... more »on Indie Awards HISTORICAL NON-FICTION Finalist, MEMOIRS Finalist, BEST COVER DESIGN NON-FICTION Finalist
2019 National Indie Excellence Awards BOOK COVER DESIGN NON-FICTION Finalist
A high position bestowed by China's empress dowager grants power and wealth to the Sun family. For Isabel, growing up in glamorous 1930s and '40s Shanghai, it is a life of utmost privilege. But while her scholar father and fashionable mother shelter her from civil war and Japanese occupation, they cannot shield the family forever.
When Mao comes to power, eighteen-year-old Isabel journeys to Hong Kong, not realizing that she will make it her home--and that she will never see her father again. Meanwhile, the family she has left behind struggles to survive, only to have their world shattered by the Cultural Revolution. Isabel returns to Shanghai fifty years later with her daughter, Claire, to confront their family's past--one they discover is filled with love and betrayal, kidnappers and concubines, glittering pleasure palaces and underworld crime bosses.
Lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched, Remembering Shanghai follows five generations from a hardscrabble village to vibrant Shanghai to the bright lights of Hong Kong. By turns harrowing and heartwarming, this vivid memoir explores identity, loss and the unpredictable nature of life against the epic backdrop of a nation and a people in turmoil.« less